1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an optical element mounting method for mounting an optical element, such as a light-emitting element, a light-receiving element, or the like, to a optical waveguide, and relates to an optical element mounting device for implementing the optical element mounting method.
2. Related Art
Accompanying the improvements in the processing capabilities of computers in recent years, the problem of a “wiring bottleneck” has arisen in which the electrical wires of the computer or between various devices limit the performance of the overall system. Attention has focused on short-distance optical wiring (optical interconnections) within a device or between devices or the like, as a means for solving wiring bottlenecks. In order to realize optical interconnections, optical technologies which are economical as compared with the telecommunications field are required, and the lowering of costs of both the structural parts and the mounting method has become an issue to be addressed.
In methods for mounting optical elements such as light-emitting elements, light-receiving elements, or the like to optical waveguides, in order to align the optical elements, there is mounting by active alignment in which alignment is carried out by driving the optical elements and observing the optical input strengths, and mounting by passive alignment in which alignment is carried out by using, as guides, position identifying marks which are provided for the optical parts. With active alignment, the light incident/exiting positions of the waveguide can be judged accurately, but the costs are high. On the other hand, with passive alignment, the light incident/exiting positions which are inferred as relative positions from the position identifying marks, do not always coincide with the actual optical axis, and the efficiency of accurate optical coupling is low.